INGREDIENTS FOR DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS 2

Relationships are the glue that holds families, communities and nations together.

Without positive relationships individuals, families, communities and even nations won’t be able to significantly progress. One of the reasons Africa is poor is because of the failure of African countries to relate and effectively connect with one another. Her people are disconnected from each other through tribalism and nepotism. Relationships capacitate and maximise both human and natural resources. Africa is rich in natural resources, yet we fail to harness them due to our failure to positively connect with each other. The word relationship is defined as ‘a state involving mutual dealings between people, parties or countries’. It is a state of connectedness between people. Greed and jealousy have caused people of Africa to be disjointed. Lack of cooperate vision has caused us to pull and move in different directions. A divided continent will not be able to harness its resources for the betterment of its people. Africa is rich, but we must find a way of working together in order to improve the quality of life for people. United we stand and progress, divided we will always fall and remain in poverty. Understanding the power of relationships is significant to progress in life.

When it comes to relationships, we must start at the point of respecting and intentionally putting value on other people. In human relations you can’t secretly look down upon people because of the colour of their skin, their culture, their status in life, or their religion and still be able to make them feel valuable. Relationships are key to building strong marriages, families, communities, companies, businesses and nations. If we want to positively impact others and be successful in life, we must cultivate the ability to understand others. Understanding people puts you in a position of influence in every sphere of life. Usually what most people need is to be listened to, respected, valued and understood. Understanding people is key to our ability to communicate effectively with them. We must therefore endeavour to understand people, how they think, what and how they feel, what inspires them, how they process information, and how they act or react in a given circumstance.

As a matter of fact, many of the conflicts among people are usually caused by the inability to understand one another. Harry Truman said: “When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, understand what he is trying to do, nine times out of 10 he is trying to do right.” We must never be opinionated against or afraid to listen to other people’s ideas or how other people do things. It is important to try to see things from other people’s perspectives, and then learn to recognise and appreciate the differences. The differences actually add beauty and strength to human relations. In relationships everyone wants to feel significant, valued and cared for. Usually people want to see and feel that you care and value them. Relationships with people bring forth great memories, yet also our most difficult, painful, hurtful and tragic experiences are with people. One of the great challenges of life is to keep on loving and caring for people even when you know that they may turn against you, accuse you, betray you, unceremoniously walk away from you, gossip about your weaknesses and forget about all your care and love.

Here are some quotes from, Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership:
1    People are generally illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered, love them anyway.
2    If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives, do good anyway.
3   If you’re successful, you will win false friends and true enemies, succeed anyway.
4    The good you do today will perhaps be forgotten tomorrow, do good anyway.
5     Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable, be honest and frank anyway.
6     The biggest man with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest man with the smallest mind, think big anyway.
7    People really need help but may attack you if you help them, help them anyway.
8    Give the world the best that you have and you will get kicked in the teeth, give the world the best you have anyway.
8     If better is possible, then good is not enough.

All human beings are imperfect, flawed and have weak points. Understanding this will help us navigate around human flaws. Patience and perseverance are the virtues required to navigate around great human beings with flaws.
Patience is the state or quality of being patient; the power of suffering with fortitude; uncomplaining endurance of evils or wrongs experienced.
Patience is good natured tolerance of other people’s weakness, flaws or incompetence. Dealing with humans is very challenging, we need to persevere and be determined to make relationships work at different levels.
The world would be a better place if all of us made a choice to consistently cultivate the ability to positively work with one another at family, community and national levels.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: